Swappa local: A trusted local marketplace to buy and sell your used gear

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Since I write about mobile technology here on ZDNet, I’ve been buying and selling gear as part of my review process. I sold my first phone, a Sony Xperia Z2, on Swappa five years ago and continue to use this service to buy and sell phones, wearables, and tablets. Swappa has steps in place to verify gear is legitimate so you don’t have to worry about getting scammed while its listing fees are the lowest around. It is now taking this online expertise and bringing it to local markets with Swappa Local.

Swappa Local launched in five markets; Austin, Dallas/Ft Worth, Kansas City, Minneapolis/St Paul, and Orange County. Swappa listings are reviewed and approved by a person in an attempt to fight fraud and protect buyers. Swappa Local also has policies and protections in place for meeting to make the exchange locally with real people available to help 24/7. There is also a Swappa rating system so you can limit your purchases to the most trusted sellers.

Ben Edwards launched Swappa in 2010 with a focus on building a trusted place to by and sell mobile phones. The Swappa validation process ensures that blacklisted phones, broken phones, and other unacceptable phones were not allowed where other services often ended up in fraudulent sales. I was a victim of some of these frauds on ebay in the past so have move to only using Swappa to sell my mobile tech with it also being the first place I go for buying things.

Also: Swappa now offers protection plans for used smartphones

Swappa has grown from $500,000 in seller proceeds to more than $92,000,000 in seller proceeds from 2011 to 2018. There are 32 listings in my archive for items I have sold with 7 purchases made. BTW, I currently have a Garmin Fenix 5 Plus up for sale with an iPad Mini 5 being listed soon.

While Swappa started with mobile phones, you can now buy and sell phones, laptops, tablets, cameras, wearables, video game systems, and even home tech like smart speakers, thermostats, robot vacuums, and more. It has become they place to go for used modern technology. Check out all of the details of Swappa Local and if you want one of the very comfortable Swappa t-shirts (I have one) then enter the Swappa Local contest to win one.